Odds & Ends

Will There Be Sex in Heaven?

In February 2007, Catholic theologian Peter Kreeft delivered a lecture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. The title of his address was "Will There Be Sex in Heaven?" The short answer he gives to the question in the title is "yes." The answer is "yes" mainly because of his view that gender distinctions continue in the new creation. He argues that the resurrection of the body is a restoration project, not an obliteration of something so deep as our maleness or femaleness. Thus gender complementarity will always be a part of us, even in the age to come.

In any case, you can listen to the entire lecture for yourself at Southeastern's chapel audio page (www.sebts.edu/chapel) under the date February 3, 2007. The lecture comprises the gist of a chapter in Kreeft's book about heaven, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Heaven, but Never Dreamed of Asking (Ignatius, 1990). A text version of "Is There Sex in Heaven?" is available at Kreeft's own website, www.peterkreeft.com.

- Denny Burk

The Gospel Coalition

Last Spring, D. A. Carson and Tim Keller launched a renewal movement called "The Gospel Coalition." According to Mark Driscoll (theresurgence.com), "The Gospel Coalition" began as a theological colloquium led by Carson and Keller. The colloquium met for a few years with a special focus on drafting "a new evangelical reformed confession of faith." Members of this colloquium included Alistair Begg, Kent Hughes, Philip Ryken, Mark Dever, Ray Ortlund, Ligon Duncan, and representatives from organizations such as The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Desiring God, Together for the Gospel, 9Marks, Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Sovereign Grace Ministries, and Acts 29.

The final version of the "confession" was drafted by Carson with a preamble composed by Keller. Driscoll writes, "The colloquium was arranged in order to help hone the statements into an agreeable final draft. The hope was to redefine a clear center for evangelicalism more akin to that previously articulated by men such as Francis Schaeffer, John Stott, and Billy Graham."

Of interest to our readers is The Gospel Coalition's confessional statement on Gender and the Family:

We believe that God created human beings, male and female, in his own image. Adam and Eve belonged to the created order that God himself declared to be very good, serving as God's agents to care for, manage, and govern creation, living in holy and devoted fellowship with their Maker. Men and women, equally made in the image of God, enjoy equal access to God by faith in Christ Jesus and are both called to move beyond passive self-indulgence to significant private and public engagement in family, church, and civic life. Adam and Eve were made to complement each other in a one-flesh union that establishes the only normative pattern of sexual relations for men and women, such that marriage ultimately serves as a type of the union between Christ and his church. In God's wise purposes, men and women are not simply interchangeable, but rather they complement each other in mutually enriching ways. God ordains that they assume distinctive roles which reflect the loving relationship between Christ and the church, the husband exercising headship in a way that displays the caring, sacrificial love of Christ, and the wife submitting to her husband in a way that models the love of the church for her Lord. In the ministry of the church, both men and women are encouraged to serve Christ and to be developed to their full potential in the manifold ministries of the people of God. The distinctive leadership role within the church given to qualified men is grounded in creation, fall, and redemption and must not be sidelined by appeals to cultural developments.

For more on The Gospel Coalition and its foundational documents, visit the website: www.thegospelcoalition.org.

- Denny Burk

"We Reject the Commands of Scripture"

One of the primary goals of the Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood was to define the complementary roles of men and women. In the evangelical gender debate this statement has delineated a defensible complementarian position based on biblical authority. Twenty years later, people on both sides of the issue at least recognize that the battle lines are clearly drawn.

Luke Timothy Johnson is a distinguished New Testament scholar and explained his position in an article on homosexuality and the church ("Homosexuality & the Church: Two Views" Commonweal 134 [2007]). He teaches at Emory University, a theological school of the United Methodist Church, which has the mission to train church leaders "grounded in the Christian faith and shaped by the Wesleyan tradition of evangelical piety, ecumenical openness, and social concern." Unfortunately, Emory rejects biblical authority, supports the ordination of women, and seeks to be at the forefront of institutions valuing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students.

In the article, it is clear that Johnson understands his opponents: "For them, the authority of Scripture and tradition resides in a set of commands, and loyalty as a matter of obedience. If the Church has always taught that same-sex relations are wrong, and the Bible consistently forbids it, then the question is closed." He clearly understands the biblical text: "Accepting covenanted love between persons of the same sex represents the same downward spiral with respect to Scripture, since the Bible nowhere speaks positively or even neutrally about same-sex love."

Johnson is straightforward about why he supports same-sex marriage:

I think it is important to state clearly that we do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of Scripture, and appeal instead to another authority when we declare that same-sex unions can be holy and good. And what exactly is that authority? We appeal explicitly to the weight of our own experience and the experience thousands of others have witnessed to, which tells us that to claim our own sexual orientation is in fact to accept the way in which God has created us.

He is also realistic about the basis for his position: "We are fully aware of the weight of Scriptural evidence for pointing away from our position, yet place our trust in the power of the living God to reveal as powerfully through personal experience and testimony as through written texts."

I respect Dr. Johnson for his specificity in articulating the foundation of his position in favor of same-sex marriage, but I fundamentally disagree with his conclusion. I am grieved for the church and am alarmed by the deteriorating definition of marriage in our culture. Nevertheless, I am grateful for God's sovereign control over history, for the pastors and scholars who labored to provide the Danvers statement to the church, and for the partners who are standing with CBMW for biblical manhood and womanhood.

- David Kotter

When History Trumps Scripture

Mimi Haddad is the president of Christians for Biblical Equality, and I was pleased to be present for the paper that she presented at the 2007 meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. There is much that could be said in response to her presentation, but I will only offer two brief reflections here—one positive and the other negative.

First, I appreciated being reminded of God's remarkable work in the nineteenth century. The 1800s were a period of incredible growth and activity among evangelicals in America and Britain. Missions agencies—both domestic and foreign—and benevolence societies of all sorts grew, prospered, and dramatically impacted the world. We should praise God for this advance of the gospel. Among other things, we should thank the Lord that he chose to use many remarkable women to accomplish some of these things. Haddad's paper was a helpful reminder of this fact.

Nevertheless, I think there was a severe weakness to Haddad's "Since A, then B" argument. She attempted to prove that since women led in some important ways in the evangelical movement in the past, we should encourage women to assume leadership in our churches and ministries today. Without nit-picking about the details of the nineteenth century (What were the relative numbers of women leaders vs. men leaders anyway? Lottie Moon impacted Southern Baptists without ever being placed in a position of leadership on their missions agency, right?), here is my major concern with Haddad's argument.

We must remember that the Bible is authoritative; history isn't. We must always eschew the fallacy of looking back in time to follow the doctrine that our favorite theologian formulated or to adopt a methodology that "worked" at some previous time. As a church historian, I remind my students of this all the time, for this is the danger of those who love and value history. "John Owen said it, so it has to be right." "William Carey did it, so it must be biblical." Right? No. We must humbly learn from sisters and brothers who loved Christ before us. That is, in my opinion, one of the great reasons to study history. But the only touchstone of our faith and practice is God's inspired word, the Bible.

All evangelicals should agree that the Bible alone (sola scriptura) is the only inerrant guide for our beliefs and church practices. Haddad argues, though, that we should seek to base our ministries on the example of women's roles in the nineteenth century (which is not as strong an example as Haddad implies), rather than tackling the teaching of texts like 1 Tim 2:11-15. This is a dangerous course. If we follow it, we are in danger of abandoning the Protestant principle of sola scriptura in favor of Roman Catholicism's view that God guides us through both Scripture and as the Holy Spirit leads the church to fuller revelation in her tradition. Protestants should value and learn from the tradition of the church. But we must always critique that tradition biblically. O n the basis of the Bible's teaching on women's roles, I don't think that Haddad's arguments from the history of the nineteenth century are valid.

- Shawn Wright

Gender Confusion in California, Clarity in the Scriptures

Last Fall, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law the California Student Civil Rights Act, which adds "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the class of groups to be protected from "educational discrimination."

Teachers and school districts have been prohibited from "giving instruction . . . [and] sponsoring any activity that reflects adversely upon persons because of their race, sex, creed, handicap, national origin or ancestry." Educators are also prohibited from "sponsoring any activity that reflects adversely upon persons because of their gender identity."

The law leaves undefined precisely what sort of events or curricula might qualify as "educational discrimination" on the basis of "gender identity" or "sexual orientation."

Such fuzzy-headed thinking on human sexuality and gender has been introduced into school districts in California by groups such as the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition (GPAC), an organization that was profiled in a four-part series on CBMW's Gender Blog.

While the California legislation is troubling even on its surface, Jennifer Roback Morse of the conservative monthly National Review and author of Smart Sex: Finding Life-long Love in a Hook-up World, gets right to the heart of the sad fallout for students in California and in other states where similar laws will surely be attempted in the future.

"Most disturbing," she writes, "is that such legislation will cause struggles in the development of a healthy sense of gender in the vast majority of young people. Due to the flexible language employed, anything that looks remotely like gender stereotyping will run afoul of this law." Further, she points out the reality that growing up as boys and girls is difficult enough without such "thinly-disguised thought-control laws" adding another layer of confusion from feminism and gay/transgender rights advocates.

Most young people have questions about how to express their gender. What does it mean to be a man? What should a good woman do? These are questions with which all young people must grapple, and they are entitled to have some substantial guidance from adults. For far too long, we've been avoiding these questions out of fear of offending sensibilities. With this new law, California school teachers and school boards will have to fear the gay lobby, as well as the feminist establishment.

Indeed, all young people do grapple with the appropriate ways to express and understand their gender and stand in need of substantial guidance. However, they are not going to find it in a culture entranced by postmodernity's siren song of gender and sexual obfuscation.

Young people, indeed all people, will find such knowledge—what Francis Schaeffer famously called "true truth"—only in the Word of God, the storehouse of wisdom, wisdom that brings clarity such as "God created them male and female," wisdom that demands that the only legitimate union between a man and a woman is a covenant union sealed by a holy God for a lifetime.

Scripture knows no such ambiguous language with regard to issues of gender and sexuality and again, God's Word proves that its wisdom brings to nothing the so-called "knowledge" of the philosopher of this age.

- Jeff Robinson